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Top Teams Hold Steady in the NCAA Division I Cross Country Regional Team Rankings - USTFCCCAPublished by
Top Teams Hold Steady in the NCAA Division I Cross Country Regional Team RankingsCourtesy: Dennis Young, USTFCCCA September 15, 2014 NEW ORLEANS –After three weeks of cross country teams hitting the trails in 2014, the first regular season Regional Team Rankings for NCAA Division I are in as the top two men’s and women’s teams in all nine regions remained unchanged from the preseason. This homeostasis in the rankings released Monday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) comes as no surprise as many top teams have held out or held back their best runners until races begin counting for at-large consideration on Friday, September 26. The first regular season edition of the USTFCCCA National Coaches Polls will be released Tuesday. Regional Rankings Summary PDF | Division I XC Rankings Central In exception to this trend were the Penn State men and women, who both moved up to No. 3 in their respective Mid-Atlantic Region rankings, and the Washington women, who also moved up to No. 3 in the West. While the top teams have flown through the first three weeks of competition in a holding pattern atop their respective regions, that not to say there wasn’t shuffling of the deck farther down the list. The women of Pitt and Yale made the two biggest jumps out of any team in the country of either sex. The Panthers went from No. 14 to No. 7 in the Mid-Atlantic, while and the Bulldogs jumped from No. 13 to No. 7 in the Northeast. Overall the women’s rankings saw a bigger shift between the two genders, as 93 teams (68 percent) staying within one spot of their preseason ranks compared to 109 teams (81 percent) for the men. Making their season debuts in the women’s rankings were Xavier (Great Lakes); Utah Valley (Mountain); TCU(South Central); UMBC (Mid-Atlantic); Iowa and Wichita State (Midwest); Middle Tennessee and Georgia State (South); and Loyola Marymount and UC Santa Barbara (West). That’s the first regional rank for UMBC since at least 2010. For the men, the biggest jumpers in the mostly static men’s poll were Middle Tennessee—up five slots in the South—and Bucknell, up four slots in the Mid-Atlantic. Toledo (Great Lakes); McNeese State, Texas State and LSU (South Central); Pittsburgh (Mid-Atlantic);Vermont (Northeast); VMI (Southeast); Samford (South); and Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount (West) entered the regional rankings for the first time in 2014. It’s the first appearances in the regional rankings for Vermont, VMI, and Santa Clara dating back to the beginning of the USTFCCCA archive in 2010. NCAA Division I Regional Championships will be held around the country Friday, November 14. USTFCCCA Regional Cross Country Rankings are determined subjectively by a single member coach in each respective region. The regional representative is tasked with weighing returning team strength with current-season results in determining predicted team finishes at the NCAA Regional Championships.
Read the full article at: www.ustfccca.org
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